I Broke My YouTube Channel – The New Rules of Success on YouTube

I intentionally broke my YouTube channel. Why did I do it? It was going to happen anyway.

What’s going on now with YouTube is insane. You’re seeing people with channels with millions of subscribers disappearing. I’ll give you an example. There was a guy, Soldier Knows Best that was a tech reviewer. He took two months off and his subscriber base went into the negative. This is the thing many people don’t know unless you’re doing this.

The new features in place dictate that you have to upload frequently. You have to. The old ways don’t work. I remember when I could get away uploading every two weeks. I remember when I could get away with uploading once a month. The new thing is you have to upload consistently and you’ve got to have a deeper knowledge base about whatever you’re discussing.

There’s a lot of people out there saying, “Just upload a bunch of videos and figure it out later.” I don’t think that’s a good policy with what I now know. Another reason I broke my YouTube channel is I got bored about things that were going down and how things were happening. I was bored with the subject matter. I was kind of bored with the responses. It was just something I didn’t want to do anymore.

I figured I started this thing and I could fix it. The best way to fix this is to start over. I started messing around with videos that were right because they bringing me leads I didn’t want. That’s an issue, a big, big issue.

Following your instincts is a really good thing to do sometimes. I would have probably been able to limp along for another year. But what’s happening on YouTube would have happened to me.

One big issue is segmentation. This was the biggest reason I broke my YouTube channel. With Hustler’s Kung Fu, there was literally fifteen different categories of people coming to the channel. So, when I put out an offer, maybe one or two of those groups would like it, but it would alienate the others. So that was a huge problem. It’s a good problem to have. Many people are struggling to get views. They may only get five or six views every time they put up a video.

I knew I had something to work with, so I dove into fixing the channel. I am learning so much. For example, if you have 10,000 t0 50,000 subscribers, you get a YouTube person. Your YouTube person will give you advice about what works.

What I currently have is a clunky channel. I have 15 different tribes coming here looking for different things. You can’t serve that many people without being a massive organization, which I’m not. Building a clunky channel will give you traffic. It will get you attention.

But, when you are chasing trends, your channel is subject to breaking itself. The minute you stop chasing trends, then you have to depend on your core audience. If you don’t have a core audience, it’s going to go really, really bad.

If you have a core audience, you can have a smaller channel. You won’t get the views of a larger channel, but you can sell more merchandise. Now that’s the game that I’m playing. That’s why I’m getting rid of certain categories and information.

I’m building a channel for the future. What I am doing is creating a Netflix affect intentionally. I’ve seen this for years. I’ve never tried to do it, it just happened. I’ve had people say, “Dude, I’ve been watching your channel straight for two or three days. That’s the Netflix affect.

Having a channel where people binge watch you, it keeps you in YouTube’s good graces. That increases your watch time. Also, if people are doing this, it means you have a lot of stuff people want to watch. That’s going to help you in terms of positioning yourself and selling stuff, which is awesome.

You should have as many playlists as you have subjects. When you see the channel’s front page now, it is easier to binge watch than it was before. Anything that helps you create a better customer experience is going to help you make more money. That was one of the issues.

I am uploading so many videos to encourage binge watching. My goal is to do three to five a day. You have to look at your analytics. Last weekend my, viewership plummeted. That’s explainable. My audience is 92% male. They’re watching football on the weekends. I’ve seen this year after year.

With the new YouTube algorithm, you don’t want to put your videos out on days when the viewership will be low. It’s pointless. This decision to not put videos out on the weekend is based on my data. Someone else with a different audience could crush it on Saturday.

Another reason I broke my channel is I was tired of the affiliate comments. On some of my better videos that got a bunch of traffic, there was all of this video click bait in the comments. Unfortunately, some of that spam still slips through. It’s a pain in the ass. With the newer stuff, I don’t get that as much.

Ultimately the reason I am doing this is the new rules. I saw what was happening. I saw YouTubers much bigger than me that were slipping. There are people who if they don’t change how they upload and what they’re doing, their channel is going to go extinct.

In 2009 when I started my channel, YouTube was three years old at the time. There weren’t a lot of people there yet. You can literally replace a big YouTuber in the YouTube ecosystem overnight. To prove this, look up Trainer. This channel is about how to play Pokemon. The channel was started in January. He gained 480,000 subscribers in two months. That’s because of the way this new algorithm works.

For every big YouTuber out there, there is another YouTuber positioned to take their place. With that kind of competition, there isn’t any loyalty. With the new algorithm and the way it works, they can afford to get rid of a big YouTuber. You need to understand that.

While YouTube is somewhat challenging, it is also replete with opportunity. Since it is so easy to scale now, there are a lot of people that will go from nothing to one to two million subscribers in a year. Success is going to be heavily based on topic.

In the long-game, if you don’t have channel integrity, you’re not going to last. It’s a slippery game. You can do the trendy stuff, but you’ll be a flash in the pan.

This is what I’ve learned. The more videos you put out, the better. Always keep some videos in the bank so that if you go out of town, you have some you can put out during that time. If you’re going to play the YouTube game, you’ve got to have consistent content.

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